Biostar B650M Motherboard Review – All The Basic AM5 Features In A Sub-$100 Design

AMD's B650 motherboards have come a long way. From the days their prices were above $150 US to now when you can find a large majority of options close to $100 US. These are decent options for AM5 PC builders and now, we are looking at designs that retail for under the $100 US segment.

Biostar is one of the manufacturers that has a very diverse portfolio of AMD AM5 motherboards, mainly the B650 options. The company focuses on the budget segment with its product stack and recently introduced the B650MT which is an entry-level design that offers all the basic features one can expect from the AM5 platform.

For today's review, we will be testing out the Biostar B650MT motherboard to see if its low price is worth given its performance and onboard features.

The AMD AM5 Platform

But before we talk about the motherboard, let's take a small recap of the AM5 platform itself. The AMD Ryzen 7000 CPUs will be migrating to a new home known as AM5, the successor to the long-lasting AM4 platform. It marks a fresh start for the Ryzen Desktop family and as such, existing Ryzen CPUs starting with Ryzen 1000 & up to Ryzen 5000 won't be supported by the new platform we will tell you why it is so.

The AM5 platform will first and foremost feature the brand-new LGA 1718 socket. That's correct, AMD isn't going the PGA (Pin Grid Array) route anymore and now focusing on LGA (Land Grid Array), similar to what Intel uses on its existing desktop processors. The main reason to go LGA is due to the addition of enhanced and next-gen features such as PCIe Gen 5, DDR5, etc that we will get to see on the AM5 platform. The socket has a single latch & gone are the days of worrying about pins underneath your precious processors.

In terms of features, the AM5 platform will initially support AMD's Ryzen 7000 'Zen 4' Desktop CPUs and extend that support to future Ryzen CPUs and APUs. The platform offers DDR5-5200 (JEDEC) memory support, up to 28 PCIe lanes (Gen 5 standard), increased NVMe 4.0, and USB 3.2 I/O lanes & we have also heard chatter about native USB 4.0 support which will be a game-changer.

A new feature called EXPO (AMD Extended Profiles for Overclocking) will allow enhanced DDR5 memory OC on the new platform, similar to Intel's XMP. It has been a rough road for AM4 to offer decent DDR4 OC capabilities but that has more or less been sorted out by now, we can only expect DDR5 to have a much better OC and compatibility experience compared to DDR4 on AM4 platforms. Furthermore, it looks like the platform will only be DDR5 compatible and we won't see DDR4 options as we do on Intel's existing platform. But with DDR5 prices and availability improving, that won't be that big of a deal for most high-end consumers for who AMD will be aiming first.

AMD B650 Series Platform

The B650E & B650 chipsets are designed as a mainstream motherboard solution with the Extreme series featuring both PCIe Gen 5.0 & M.2 while the non-E boards will adopt only PCIe 5 slot designs. The B650 motherboards are the successor to the B550 motherboards and come in at a slightly higher price range. Compared to the X670/E offerings, the B650 chipset comes in a single PCH design. The motherboards carry support for RDNA 2 iGPU too which are Ryzen 7000 'Raphael' CPUs and offer both HDMI / DP outputs.

One of the highlighted features of the AMD AM5 600-series platform is SAS or Smart Access Storage. This technology will enable GPU decompression with supported Microsoft DirectStorage games. Although there aren't many of those out there yet but expect industry-wide support for this on newer platforms.

SmartAccess Storage gets you out of the load screen and into your gameplay

Traditional game loading takes a significant amount of compute power to decompress the game’s data, requiring the CPU to do the decompression and data transfer, which introduces latency and takes up considerable system resources.

To help bypass these bottlenecks, AMD has created SmartAccess Storage, a suite of technologies supporting Microsoft DirectStorage that utilizes Smart Access Memory with new AMD platform technologies along with Radeon GPU asset decompression to improve both game load times and texture streaming.

AMD Chipset Features and Specifications:

Wccftech	X870E	X870	X670E/X670	B650E/B650	A620	X570	X399 Refresh	X399	X470	X370	B450	B350	A320	X300	A300
CrossfireX/SLI	2-Way CFX	2-Way CFX	2-Way CFX	2-Way CFX	N/A	Triple CFX/2-Way SLI	Quad SLI/CFX (Max 6 GPU Support)	Quad SLI/CFX (Max 6 GPU Support)	Triple CFX/2-Way SLI	Triple CFX/2-Way SLI	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
CPU Lanes (Usable)	24 Gen 5 (with Ryzen 7000 CPUs & above)	24 Gen 5 (with Ryzen 7000 CPUs & above)	24 Gen 5 (with Ryzen 7000 CPUs & above)	24 Gen 5 (with Ryzen 7000 CPUs & above) 24 Gen 4 for B650	24 Gen 4 (with Ryzen 7000 CPUs & above)	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
PCH Lanes (Usable)	8 Gen4 12 Gen3	4 Gen4 8 Gen3	12 Gen4 8 Gen3	8 Gen4 4 Gen3	8 Gen 3	30 +16 (with Ryzen 7 CPU)	60 (With Threadripper CPU) 4 Lanes Reserved for PCH	60 (With Threadripper CPU) 4 Lanes Reserved for PCH	16 (with Ryzen 7 CPU)	16 (with Ryzen 7 CPU) 8 (with Bristol Ridge)	16 (with Ryzen 7 CPU)	16 (with Ryzen 7 CPU) 8 (with Bristol Ridge)	16 (with Ryzen 7 CPU) 8 (with Bristol Ridge)	16 (with Ryzen 7 CPU) 8 (with Bristol Ridge)	16 (with Ryzen 7 CPU) 8 (with Bristol Ridge)
USB4	Standard	Standard	Optional	Optional	Optional	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
USB 3.1/3.2 Gen2	2	1	2	1	0	8	2	2	2	2	2	2	1	0	0
USB 3.1/3.2 Gen1	12	6	12	6	2	12 (PCH + CPU)	13 (PCH+CPU)	13 (PCH+CPU)	10	10	6	6	6	4	4
USB 2.0	8	8	8	6	6	N/A	6	6	6	6	6	6	6	0	0
SATA 6Gb/s	8	8	8	4	4	8	8	8	6	6	4	4	4	2	2
DDR5 DIMMs	4	4	4	4	4	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
DDR4 DIMMs	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	4	8	8	4	4	4	4	2	2	2
Overclocking Support	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	N/A	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No
XFR2 Enhanced	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	N/A	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	No	No	No	No
Precision Boost Overdrive	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	N/A	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	No	No	No	No
NVMe	Yes (Gen 5.0)	Yes (Gen 5.0)	Yes (Gen 5.0)	Yes (Gen 5.0)	N/A	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Form Factor	ATX/ITX	ATX/mATX/ITX	ATX/mATX/ITX	ATX/mATX/ITX	mATX/ITX	ATX, MATX	ATX, MATX	ATX, MATX	ATX, MITX	ATX	ATX, M-ATX	ATX, M-ATX	M-ATX, Mini-ITX	Mini-ITX	M-ATX, Mini-ITX

Meet The LGA 1718 Socket - How Long Will This One Last?

As mentioned earlier, AM4's reign is finally over and the AM5 socket is here now. The new socket moves from a PGA (Pin-Grid-Array) design to an LGA (Land-Grid-Array) layout. The new LGA 1718 socket offers more pin connections to the CPU, allowing for more communication channels with the board itself and enabling support for enhanced features that the new platform has to offer.

 

As for longevity, AMD has now committed to a 2027+ longevity for its AM5 platform and respective motherboards which is great news for builders who have invested in the new Ryzen platform. The motherboards support the upcoming Ryzen 9000 Desktop CPUs based on the Zen 5 architecture & will also feature support for newer generations, whether those be classic or X3D "3D V-Cache" CPU variants.

Cooler Compatibility With AM5 Socket

The AMD Ryzen 7000 Desktop CPUs feature a perfect square shape (45x45mm) but house a very chonky integrated heat spreader or IHS. The CPUs are the same length, width, and height as the existing Ryzen Desktop CPUs and are sealed across the sides so applying thermal paste won't fill the interior of the IHS with TIM. That's also why current coolers will be fully compatible with Ryzen 7000 chips.

For testing, I used the AMD Ryzen 9 7950X and a range of B650 series motherboards for the performance evaluation.

AMD AM5 Motherboards Test Setup:

Processors	AMD Ryzen 9 7950X
Motherboard (BIOS)	Biostar B650MT (B65CQ426.BSS) ASRock B650E Taichi LITE (1.28) ASRock X670E Taichi (1.09) X670E AORUS Xtreme (F6a) X670E AORUS Master (F8a) ASUS X670E ROG HERO (0705) MSI MAG B650M Mortar WIFI (7D76vA1) ASRock B650E Taichi (1.11) ASRock B650E PG ITX (1.11) B650 AORUS Elite AX (F3b)
Power Supply	ASUS ROG THOR 1200W
Solid State Drive	Samsung SSD 980 PRO M.2 (1 TB)
Memory	G.SKILL Trident Z5 32 GB (2 x 16GB) CL36 6000 Mbps (DDR5 Platforms)
Video Cards	MSI GeForce RTX 3090 SUPRIM X
Cooling Solutions	Corsair H115i (With LGA 1700 Mounting Kit)
OS	Windows 11 64-bit

Our test rig includes the Samsung 980 Pro 1 TB SSD that boots up our main OS while a 2 TB Seagate HDD is used for the storage of games and applications. In addition to these, we are running an MSI GeForce RTX 4090 SUPRIM X graphics card and an ASUS ROG Thor 1200W power supply. For this specific review, we used G.Skill's latest Trident Z5 NEO DDR5-6000 memory kit running at CL30 timings. We also got an AM5 mounting kit for the Corsair H115i to use as a cooling solution for our test setup.

3DMark Time Spy CPU Performance

3DMark Time Spy is a widely popular video card benchmark test for Windows that is designed to measure your PC’s gaming performance. While the overall benchmark is great, the utility also provides a good indication of the CPU performance.

Blender

Blender is a free and open-source 3D creation suite. It supports the entirety of the 3D pipeline—modeling, rigging, animation, simulation, rendering, compositing, motion tracking, and even video editing and game creation.

Cinebench R20

Cinebench is a real-world cross-platform test suite that evaluates your computer’s hardware capabilities. Improvements to Cinebench Release 20 reflect the overall advancements to CPU and rendering technology in recent years, providing a more accurate measurement of Cinema 4D’s ability to take advantage of multiple CPU cores and modern processor features available to the average user.

Cinebench R23

Cinebench is a real-world cross-platform test suite that evaluates your computer’s hardware capabilities. Improvements to Cinebench Release 20 reflect the overall advancements to CPU and rendering technology in recent years, providing a more accurate measurement of Cinema 4D’s ability to take advantage of multiple CPU cores and modern processor features available to the average user.

CPU-Z

CPUz is a freeware that gathers information on some of the main devices of your system such as the Processor name and number, codename, process, package, cache levels, Mainboard, chipset, Memory type, size, timings, and module specifications (SPD), and Real-time measurement of each core's internal frequency, memory frequency.

Geekbench 5

Geekbench 5, the latest major upgrade to Primate Labs’ easy-to-use cross-platform benchmark, is now available for download. Geekbench 5 allows you to measure your system’s power more accurately than ever before.

HandBrake

HandBrake is a tool for converting video from nearly any format to a selection of modern, widely supported codecs.

PCMark 10

PCMark 10 is a complete PC benchmarking solution for Windows 10. It includes several tests that combine individual workloads covering storage, computation, image and video manipulation, web browsing, and gaming. Specifically designed for the full range of PC hardware from netbooks and tablets to notebooks and desktops, PCMark 10 offers complete Windows PC performance testing for home and business use.

POV-Ray

The POV-Ray package includes detailed instructions on using the ray tracer and creating scenes. Many stunning scenes are included with POV-Ray so you can start creating images immediately when you get the package.

SuperPI

Super PI is used by many overclockers to test the performance and stability of their computers. In the overclocking community, the standard program provides a benchmark for enthusiasts to compare “world record” pi calculation times and demonstrate their overclocking abilities. The program can also be used to test the stability of a certain overclock speed.

WinRAR

WinRAR is a powerful archive manager. It can back up your data and reduce the size of email attachments, decompress RAR, ZIP, and other files downloaded from the Internet, and create new archives in RAR and ZIP file format.

X264 HD Encode Benchmark

This benchmark measures the encoding performance of the processor. It offers a standardized benchmark for the clip, as well as the encoder used, is uniform.

Battlefield V

Battlefield V brings back the action of the World War 2 shooter genre. Using the latest Frostbite tech, the game does a good job of looking gorgeous in all ways possible. From the open-world environments to the intense and gun-blazing action, this multiplayer and single-player FPS title is one of the best-looking Battlefields to date. The game was tested at max settings at 1440p.

Cyberpunk 2077

Cyberpunk 2077 is an action role-playing video game developed by CD Projekt Red and published by CD Projekt. The story takes place in Night City, an open world set in the Cyberpunk universe. Players assume the first-person perspective of a customizable mercenary known as V, who can acquire skills in hacking and machinery with options for melee and ranged combat. The game uses CD Projekt Red's in-house Red Engine which is one of the most visually breathtaking and also one of the most graphics-intensive engines designed to date.

Metro Exodus

Metro Exodus continues the journey of Artyom through the nuclear wasteland of Russia and its surroundings. This time, you are set over the Metro, going through various regions and different environments. The game is one of the premier titles to feature NVIDIA’s RTX technology and does well in showcasing the ray-tracing effects in all corners. The game was tested at Ultra setting with RTX settings turned off at 1440p.

Shadow of The Tomb Raider

Sequel to The Rise of the Tomb Raider, Shadow of The Tomb Raider is visually enhanced with an updated Foundation Engine that delivers realistic facial animations and the most gorgeous environments ever seen in a Tomb Raider Game. The game is a technical marvel and shows the power of its graphics engine in the latest title.

Sid Meier's Civilization VI

Civilization VI is the pinnacle of the series. It features huge, sweeping changes, and nothing was left out. Everything has found a purpose, they all work together in tandem but also have a reason to stand alone. It uses a more fleshed-out engine that now supports DirectX 12 capabilities. We tested the game with every setting maxed out (4x MSAA, 4096x4096 shadow textures) at 1440P in DirectX 12.

AMD's Ryzen 7000 Desktop CPUs utilize a brand new Zen 4 core architecture that is built on the 5nm process node as such, these chips are designed to be extremely efficient.

The AMD Ryzen 7000 & Ryzen 8000G processors are very different from one another. The Ryzen 7000 CPUs utilize a chiplet design with either 1 or 2 CCDs and a single IO die while the Ryzen 8000G APU family comes in a monolithic design with just one chip on the PCB. As such, the cooling for the chips is very different with the Ryzen 7000 CPUs being a tricky one since you have to keep all three dies in check based on their thermal characteristics. The thermal testing was carried out with the Corsair H1150i AIO liquid cooler:

The Biostar B650MT is a basic AM5 motherboard based on the B650 chipset. It's fine for those who want the most basic functionality while sticking with the more mainstream CPUs on the platform.

In our tests, the B650MT didn't live up to the mark using the high-end Ryzen 9 7950X which has a TDP rating of 170W and goes over 200W (MTP) with PBO enabled. The lowly 6-phase VRM wasn't able to get us the reference performance for the high-end CPUs but if you are planning to go with more mainstream options such as the 65W and 105W SKUs, then the motherboard will be fine as shown in our CPU tests which are on par with the other high-end motherboards we tested the Hawk Point APU with.

As for memory support, while Biostar claims to have support for up to 6000 MT/s DDR5 modules, we had a hard time running DDR5 over 5600 MT/s. Once again, the large majority of users won't be running anything above 6000 MT/s but for APUs, 6000-6400 MT/s seems to be the best option since they have a RDNA 2 iGPU that loves raw system bandwidth.

I/O on the Biostar B650MT is basic too with a single PCIe 4.0 x16 slot, a single PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 slot, and four SATA ports. Most budget gamers stick with 1 M.2 SSD primarily for the OS while using HDDs for their storage directory since they offer the most value per GB. The VRM temps are also something to keep in mind as the motherboard has a single VRM heatsink which doesn't do much. Overall, for its $85 US price, the motherboard is a very simple option which is decent enough for budget builders but besides that, there isn't much to talk about. So if you are really low on cash and want a B650 motherboard, the B650MT is worth considering.

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